Making Salsa

It's that time of year for the garden produce to be converted into tasty salsa. This year, I planted 6 tomato plants and 9 pepper plants. I planted 3 jalapeno plants, 1 chili plant, 1 habanero plant, 1 banana hot pepper, 1 banana sweet pepper, and 2 green pepper plants. We didn't have a late season freeze this year, thus I was able to get the plants in a little earlier than last year. Well, there were enough peppers and tomatos (mostly) to make my first batch of salsa. Making homemade salsa can be a real chore, but I love the taste so much that it's definitely worth it to me. I didn't quite have enough tomatoes, so I did buy a few tomatoes at the store. I miscalculated and still didn't have enough so ended up using a couple cans of diced tomatoes as well, one of which was Italian Style. So, the salsa turned out somewhat on the mild side, and has an italian flavor. Oh well. The canning process was uneventful and everything looked good. We'll see how it tastes in a few months.

Photographing Fireworks

One of the advantages of living where we do is we have an unobstructed view of 3 professional fireworks displays from the comfort of our deck. Tonight was the first of the season and I decided to photograph some of the displays. Unfortunately, the pictures didn't turn out as good as I'd hoped. They are OK, but are not the stellar fireworks images that you occasionally see. Oh well. I have a Canon Rebel Digital Rebel XT with the 28-135 IS lense. Overall, I really like the camera, but have been disappointed time and again with the results. Even though the lense was a bit pricey, I just don't think it's worth the money.

Omaha Summer Arts Festival

The Omaha Summer Arts Festival is this weekend. We've never attended, but decided to drive down to see what the vendors had to offer. It's held each summer in Downtown Omaha. This is similar to the St. James Art Fair that is held in Louisville, KY each fall. I'm sure many communities have something similar. We were quite disappointed. It was an eclectic mix of a lot of crap that wasn't really worth our time. We walked through a couple of times but didn't really see much of anything that sparked our interest. My wife did see some fruit/food paintings that were interesting. But, the prices were out of reach. An 11x17 painting of a bowl of fruit was about $500. My daughter just attended an art class this past week. She painted a beautiful 11x17 canvas of a beautiful flower. I'd much rather frame and hang that than pay thoses types of prices for a piece of common art.

More Storms Across Eastern Nebraska

After sleeping in a bit this morning, I was up and on the road around 10 am. The prospects for severe storms seemed real today, but the tornado threat was very marginal due to much less wind shear in the atmosphere. I decided to bag on another day of storm chasing and opted for a drive through the sandhills. I ended up at Calamus Reservoir, near Burwell, NE. A coworker goes there to fish quite often and I've never been there. It was a beautiful lake, about 8 miles long, nestled in the gently rolling sand hills. Actually, it was very picturesque. I wanted to do a little swimming but couldn't find the beach. So, I stopped on the shoreline, set up a lawn chair, and just laid in the sun for awhile and listened to my Ipod. It was a nice warm day, but not hot, with puffy cumulus clouds all around. After a couple of hours, I decided to head for home. Soon though, the cumulus clouds started to build, and it was quickly apparent that I'd be chasing thunderstorms all the way home. They were huge and were producing small hail and gusty winds. I was about 40 miles behind them the entire afternoon so had a good show the whole way. It was a good day, especially after the successful chase yesterday.

Chasing Storms Once Again

It's been awhile since I've had a chance to chase storms of any consequence. I had a couple of days off, and summertime thunderstorms were expected to fire today across the Dakotas, then slipping south into Nebraska tomorrow.

After getting off a midnight shift this morning, my original plan called for getting some sleep until about 1 pm or so, then I'd head north toward Sioux Falls (about a 3 hour drive) to see what I could see. Well, the storms were already firing by 9 am. That's a typical time that storms decrease in intensity, but not today. They continued to strengthen, and soon, a convective discussion was in effect for southeast South Dakota. So, I headed north at 10 am with no sleep.

By 1 pm, I caught up with the line of storms. I drove around a few back roads southwest of Sioux Falls, but the storms were all garbage. Some heavy rain, penny sized hail, and gusty winds. I decided to let the storms go and stopped for lunch. After lunch, I decided to head west to catch some of the storms that would develop across the Black Hills. I did stop at a rest area to get some sleep, but only slept for about 1/2 hour. It was enough to keep me going.

By late afternoon, storms were firing in both northwest and southwest South Dakota. There were still another 3 hours away, and I really didn't want to drive that far. At the same time, storms started to fire in north central Nebraska. These storms were about 80 miles to my south, a much more appealing target.

So, I drove south on 183, watching the storms continue to grow. They were quickly strong enough to produce severe weather, and eventually a tornado warning was issued. (Picture below is the storm about 20 minutes after the warning was issued, about 50 miles away.



I finally caught up with the storm around 8 pm. I had lost my cell phone connection, thus I didn't have radar data, so was chasing blind, but using NOAA Weather Radio for positioning. I core punched the storm and ended up about 3 miles southeast of the mesocylone. It was a good ride. I never did see a tornado, but did see a funnel cloud (image below). This was just a couple of miles to my west.


Unfortunately, the road I was on dead-ended (turned into a cattle path), and I had to turn around a backtrack through country dirt roads that had already received a lot of rain. That wasn't very fun, but I eventually made it back to Oneill, Nebraska where I'm staying tonight.

All in all, I've been awake for almost 24 hours, with only 30 mintues of sleep, and almost 600 miles later. Wow, adrenaline can do weird things!

New Exercise Routine

Boys and Their Toys

Linoma Beach, A Fun Afternoon

Disappointed in Local Beaches

The beaches at Branced Oak Lake west of Lincoln aren't the best.

Mahoney State Park Fun

Big Mac Attack

14 Years

We celebrated our 14th anniversary today! We had a great time while in Kearney and got to see some new things. This morning, we visited Pioneer Village, which is located in Minden, NE. It has a huge collection of various things, including cars, boats, trains, tractors, furniture, and so forth. The collection spans the beginning of each piece, and has numerous pieces through modern history. I visted the place once on a field trip in Elementary School, and I believe I may have visited it once with my folks. It's ironic, nothing has changed about the place over those last 20 years. It was still the same as it always was. It's an interesting museum, definitely worth a visit.

Below, mom and daughter and dad and daughter enjoy a break.

Getting Away for Our Anniversary